Jailed for threats with shotguns and a knife

Three men have been sent to prison for threatening people in their homes with a machete and a stolen shotgun and starting a fire in one of the houses.

The defendants were sentenced at Oxford Crown Court after a pre-trial preparation hearing where they pleaded guilty to aggravated burglary and firearm offences on September 22.

Nathan Ingram, 19, and Edward Checkley, 37, were both sentenced to eight and a half years’ imprisonment.

Gareth Curtis, 35, received a prison sentence of seven and a half years.

On February 19 around 10.30pm, the victim, a man in his thirties, was home alone in Station Road, Bampton, when two offenders forced entry to his home demanding ‘the shooters’, which the victim believed referred to his legally-owned shotguns.

The offenders stole three shotguns and ammunition while threatening him with a machete.

Ingram and Checkley admitted they were the offenders who entered the property while Curtis was the getaway driver.

On March 1 at 11am, the three men forced entry into a family’s home in Radcot Road, Faringdon.

One of the victims returned home with his young child and disturbed the offenders, who then threatened him with a sawn-off shotgun, later found to be one of the shotguns stolen from the burglary in Bampton.

They then started a fire in the victim’s hallway that resulted in the victim and his son sustaining burns, which required hospital treatment.

Ingram, of no fixed abode, had previously admitted two counts of aggravated burglary, one count of possession of a firearm and two separate counts of possessing an altered firearm and ammunition without a certificate.

At the same court hearing, Checkley, of London Street, Faringdon, pleaded guilty to two counts of aggravated burglary, and one count of possession of a firearm whilst committing a schedule 1 offence.

Also at the same hearing, Curtis, of Palmer Road, Faringdon, pleaded guilty to one count of burglary, aggravated burglary, and one count of possession of a firearm whilst committing a schedule 1 offence.